It would seem, therefore, clearly to be in the true interest of workmen to promote such legislation and such methods of organization as will afford to women the same vantage-ground as men. A good deal of nonsense is talked and written about men’s unions trampling on women’s labour. It is not to women’s labour as such that the unions are opposed; but they know from long experience that labour, whether it be men’s or women’s, that yields to the slightest pressure, and whose remuneration is subject to no given standard of living or efficiency, is the greatest danger that they could have to meet. To blame men for their action in trying to apply to women’s labour the conditions which they have found absolutely essential to their own well-being, is really to deny their own organizations any validity. It seems to me very certain that by resisting the levelling down which would follow any surrender of the standard of living as the minimum gauge of wages the men’s unions have been fighting not only against the degradation of labour generally, but for a better status for women’s labour.
CHAPTER VI.
INFLUENCE OF OCCUPATION ON HEALTH.
Economic Importance of Health—Causes of Ill-health—Textile Trades—Cotton: Steaming, Sizing, and Fluff—Children: Dr. Tarrop’s Report—Linen: Dr. Purdon’s Report—Deaths of Belfast Mill-workers—Mortality among Women—Shoddy, Silk, and Lace—Other Trades—Pottery Manufacture—White Lead: Examples of Injurious Effects—Effect on Offspring—Greater Susceptibility of Women—White Lead in other Manufactures—Lucifer Match Trade—Ventilation in Factories.
§ Economic Importance of Health.—The economics of industry from the point of view of wealth have quite a literature of their own; but the more vital standpoint of health has been almost entirely overlooked by the economist, the sociologist, and the physiologist. It is a singular oversight, for one would have thought that the conservation of industrial energy was a tolerably important element in the field of production. But, along with certain other large assumptions, we seem to have reckoned upon an inexhaustible supply of labour. It may be considered somewhat fanciful to assume anything else when in most trades the supply of labour exceeds the demand, and machinery increasingly takes the place of physical labour. The number of the labourers who present themselves is not, however, the only matter for consideration, the quality of their labour is of the most material importance. It is a matter of the greatest moment to secure well-developed and healthy people for the industrial army.
§ Causes of Ill-health.—The main causes of industrial ill-health, which apply equally to men and women, though with even greater intensity to the latter, may be classified under two heads;—causes which are incidental to the nature of the work itself, and injurious circumstances connected with its surroundings. Under the first head would come cases of poisoning from handling or breathing or absorbing in some way the poisonous matter given off from material that was being worked up; the inhalation of “dust”—a generic term which may suffice to express an almost infinite variety of particles of a more or less injurious character generated in working up textile fabrics and in the various processes of manufacturing and finishing metallic commodities; and, thirdly, the contact with noxious gases and vapours which are encountered in not a few industries. Under the second head would come all matters connected with the surroundings of the mill or workshop, such as the extent to which fresh air is admitted and foul air driven out, the cleanliness of the workrooms, the extent to which gas is burned, the heat that has to be faced, whether from exposure to furnaces, to the hot, moist atmosphere produced by hot water apparatus, or by machinery, or from over-crowding. We should have to range more or less under both heads such incidents of occupation as sedentariness, or strain and pressure, as these may be partly inherent in the occupation, and partly the result of custom, and therefore not necessarily connected with the processes of the work to be performed.
But in considering women’s work we have to take into account not only the immediate effect upon the worker, but the indirect consequences that may follow from injury to the system; and here we are brought almost at once into contact with all the grave questions connected with the subject of married women’s labour. As to the extent and gravity of the injuries to health arising from the general causes indicated, there is no question whatever. The reader who wishes to ascertain for himself full particulars as to diseases of occupation cannot do better than read the work by Dr. Arlidge, in which he breaks the ground on this immense subject. He will find no less than ninety occupations specified as dangerous because of the amount of dust disseminated, and an equally large category of trades in which the women employed suffer in one way or another from contact with harmful materials, from emanations, or from muscular or nervous troubles contracted in connection with their work.
§ Textile Trades. Cotton.—If we glance at some of the processes connected with the textile trades, we shall be able to form some idea of what their effects are upon the operatives. The manufacturer in Burnley or Blackburn who steams his cotton in the weaving of it produces a given result not only upon the fabric but upon the operative, and the same statement applies to the process of sizing, of which steaming is a subsidiary function. Both processes are entered into for the purpose of weighting the cotton-cloth, which is sold by the pound. The compound known as size is made up of chloride and sulphate of zinc in conjunction with tallow and china clay, and this size dust gets powdered over the operatives and finds its way into their lungs. The temperature often exceeds 90° F. in the weaving sheds, and the moist heat generated by the jets of steam is excessively trying. In many weaving sheds the damp accumulates on the floor and induces rheumatism and other troubles, and the clothes of the women employed become saturated. So the adulteration of cotton cloth carries with it the adulteration of human health and the break-up of constitutions, and results in consumption, bronchitis, rheumatism, and general depression of vital force. Again, in other branches of the textile trades quantities of fluff and fine fibrous dust are generated, and the workers must take their chance of its getting into their lungs. This is especially true of the jute manufacturing and rope making industries. It is not necessary here to enter very closely into the technicalities of manufacturing; everyone will understand that the preliminary processes of textile work, the “combing” and “carding,” as it is called, are bound to set free quantities of dust, whilst, later on, the heat and damp which prevail in much of the spinning and weaving are the main health factors to be considered. For those who live out of sight of this great industry, never hearing the rattle of the clogs over the roads in the early morning, at the dinner hour, and again when the bell rings for ceasing work; who only know from passing them in the train the look of the huge and brilliantly lighted mills, it may require some effort of imagination to realise the importance of these matters to the operatives, who for 56½ hours every week are to a greater or lesser extent working under trying conditions.
§ Children.—We must not forget too that for half a week many thousands of young children are working in these places exposed to precisely the same conditions; and besides the half-timers who gravitate between the mill and the school many children of very tender years spend the time when their whole future depends upon healthy conditions from six o’clock in the morning till five o’clock at night in the mills. If the work is trying for adults, what must it be for the half-timers and young whole-timers? On this point Dr. Tarrop, one of the certifying surgeons, has made some valuable researches, and I give below his diagnosis of two thousand factory children examined by him.